Our Christmas Season

Christmas time as been going by quickly!  We started out making cards.  Mary made all our Christmas cards this year and I added a family newsletter.  It is so fun that she likes to do paper crafts with me. 

We put the tree up after Thanksgiving and then went to see Disney's new holiday movie, Moana.  It was a lot of fun.

It is always so nostalgic putting on the tree ornaments and remembering where they came from.  This shot really pulled on my heart strings.  This is Mary's first Christmas and then a picture from this summer.  My how 10 years go by so quickly and now she is half grown!

Little Mackie got in the Christmas spirit too!

We had a lot of fun making paper snow flakes to put in the window.  We have not had snow yet but Mary keeps hoping it will snow before Christmas Day.

We did outdoor lights this year.  It was so fun to do some outdoor decorating.

Mary is holding a Christmas gift basket for her piano teacher.  She is such a talented lady and she is so good with kids.  We just love her!

My Christmas cactus is in it's full glory right now.  It is so big that I am going to have to prune it back after it blooms or Rich won't be able to pick it up anymore and bring it into the house for the winter.

Mary had her annual Christmas piano recital.  In February she will have taken piano lessons for 3 years.  She really enjoys it and I love being able to play with her.  I have included a video of her performance.  She did really well for getting up in front of a 100 people and play on a piano she was not familiar with.  She loves to perform and looks forward to the rectals.

 

Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/aek1OhxFmYM

Thanksgiving Day

We had a great day with family! Rich made the stuffing and roasted the turkey.  I made a pumpkin pie from Mary's Halloween pumpkins and a chocolate pie.  We watched the Macy's Day parade in New York while we did the cooking.  When it was all done we loaded it up and took it over to the folks house.  We had a house full and lots more great food!  Mary had fun by making a Mayflower Ship with paper pilgrims.  Each person got one with their name on it and then she had each person write on their pilgrim what they were thankful for.  She also read the first Thanksgiving story. 

 

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Thanksgiving Week

For homeschool until Thanksgiving Day we are doing fall crafts and reading library books on Fall leaves, Indians and Thanksgiving Day history. Today we walked down our street and picked up all kinds of fall leaves and then pressed them between clear shelf liner. We used some glitter to bring in some sparkle. We are going to use them as place matts. Mary found a huge Maple leaf and made a cool placemat with it.

New President Day

I told Mary that we would take a break from school work today to celebrate New President Day.  She was thrilled.

 

You can tell by our 4th of July table decorations who we voted for!

 

Halloween

Mary had a Lovely Day!

Here is the link to the video: https://youtu.be/LBlUU9Nhs2U

Mary is a Double Digit Now

Ten years ago today this adorable little bundle came into our lives. She has always been such a doll inside and out. We couldn't of been blessed with a more lovely child. Thank you God for giving us the beautiful gift of Mary Ellen.   She belongs to you, thank you for allowing us to watch over her these years on earth. I am so glad she knows the one who gave her the spark of life, formed her in my womb and will call her home one day into your beautiful kingdom.

 

Acorn Harvest

We have been doing an acorn harvest with Mary for a homeschool project. Since Rich is part Cherokee Indian we thought Mary would enjoy exploring some of her Native American roots. The valley floor here was a beautiful oak savanah that was cultivated by the local indians and they harvested a rich crop of acorns that are gluten free and packed full of vitamins. We read up on how to harvest and process them and they are a wonderful source of free food that was part of the indian diet for centuries

The mighty Oak Tree

Giant Black Oak tree leaf

acorns that we picked up



harvesting in a local park



medium brown ones are the best



drying the nuts in the shell



the acorn meat is pretty large



cracking the shells



love the little caps they wear

our hand crank grain mill



It worked pretty well



This is day one of soaking the ground acorns to get the tannins out



This is day 6 of rinsing each day.  The bitter taste is gone!



letting the water drain out through a coffee filter



drying the acorn gruel



ground the hardened gruel into a flour using the food processor



Adding the acorn flour to our pancake mix



It had a wonderful nutty aroma as it cooked



We enjoyed the pancakes with butter, peanut butter and syrup!